Vehicular and fixed installations of reciprocating floor conveyors are well known and have been in use for many years. Typically, these conveyors comprise a plurality of side-by-side elongated floor members which are longitudinally reciprocated in sets by a power drive unit. At least a majority of the floor members are advanced together in one direction to move a load and then less than a majority are retracted separately to a start position. The sequence is repeated, advancing the load when the majority of floor members advance and not substantially moving the load when the minority are retracted. It is well known to use such reciprocating floor conveyors to move or unload either bulk or palleted loads.
The use of standardized containers has become commonplace in the shipping industry for transporting goods by ship, truck and/or railway without unloading the shipped goods from the container at intermediate points. A typical journey of such a cargo container may include loading goods into the container which is then carried by truck or railway to a seaport where the container is stacked, along with many others, onto an ocean-going vessel. The container may be transported across the ocean to another seaport where it is loaded onto a railcar frame and carried to a central distribution station. At the distribution station, the container may be moved onto a truck or trailer frame for local delivery to its final destination. After delivery, the empty container may be returned by truck and/or railway to a seaport for return shipment, unloaded or loaded with cargo.
Many times a cargo container will spend a portion or all of its return journey unloaded because of its inability to carry or handle certain types of loads. Outfitting a cargo container with a reciprocating floor conveyor would increase the utility of the container by making it able to handle most any type of load, whether bulk, palleted, refrigerated or dry. Outfitting a cargo container with a complete reciprocating floor conveyor, including the necessary power drive unit, would add significant tare weight to the container, unnecessarily increasing the cost of transporting the container and its cargo between intermediate destinations where loading and unloading functions are not performed. Furthermore, any equipment added to the cargo container or transport vehicle frames which make either of them non-uniform in size or which limits their interchangeable use with standard containers or transport vehicle frames is considered extremely undesirable.